One of the fun things we do here at MBC is tell stories.
There's not just a house on the market – there can be a story to it that's interesting.
Last Summer, we wrote about an awkward situation that had emerged with a Manhattan Beach home listed by Redfin, the brokerage who's got their app on nearly every homebuyer's phone.
Redfin was listing 1201 23rd St., a custom 2018 Mediterranean. Even after they reduced the price to $3.298M (from $3.500M), the public asking price was $107K higher than the "Redfin Estimate" of the value ($3.190M at the time).
Yeah, that was awkward. Simply put, as a seller, you don't want your own broker telling the whole world "our listing is worth less than our client is asking."
Now, fast-forward several months. The home is still on the market, but no longer listed with Redfin.
The current listing of 1201 23 (that's how they input it) just made a price cut to $3.100M. (1201 23 is listed by Susan Jung, Compass.)
Now the kind folks at Redfin, never ones to hold a grudge, are signaling to the market that the new price is below its proper value.
Yeah, their value estimate is down $55K from last year, but it's still $35K over the new asking price.
Awwww, Redfin, ya mensches, look how much you are trying to help!
Worth noting: For the month of August last year, while Redfin still had the listing, the price was $3.099M, so the "new" price now is more like a return to where it was.
As to the home itself, the word "custom" is doing a lot of work when we use that word to describe it. To fit 6br and 5ba into 3442 sqft., the floor plan prioritizes bedrooms over common space. Indeed, garage space has also been converted to living space. This is what they needed, so it's what they built. The sellers need to find buyers with similar needs.
At least now they've got a cheerleader in their former listing brokerage!
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Flashback Links
- Back in 2018, our exposé demonstrated how Redfin sometimes hides "inconvenient" valuations on their own listings.
- In 2022, Redfin's home-valuation algorithm earned an A- from us, after our public test of its accuracy versus others. Zillow barely earned a C+ in the same assessment, and Realtor.com went home with a humiliating D. Even then, Redfin was within 5% of the actual sale price only 61% of the time. Redfin estimates were off by more than 10% in almost a third of cases, which is almost worse than pure guesswork. But we know you don't trust bots. You don't, right?
Please see our blog disclaimer.
Listings presented above are supplied via the MLS and are brokered by a variety of agents and firms, not Dave Fratello or Edge Real Estate Agency, unless so stated with the listing. Images and links to properties above lead to a full MLS display of information, including home details, lot size, all photos, and listing broker and agent information and contact information.
